The Winter Scarf
by lirance
Summary: The eagle screams into his throat, but the vodka burns its blood away." Ivan and wounds and the nature of slow insanity, across half a century. China and Finland cameos.
1. St Petersburg, 1904: Faultlines

_Fault-lines (St Petersburg, 1904)_

Ivan can feel the fault-lines rising and splitting through the blood in his mouth.

He's not sure how long he will last. How long Russia will last. Inside, he feels the horrible, sickly tremor of anticipation. It's not a tame, safe, singular human emotion with a clear little white label and a dictionary heading. It is something that screams from the black earth, that wails from the tundra and whispers through the cornfield, something that only a Nation could sense.

_This kingdom is waiting. Something's going to happen. Something's going to happen. Don't know when or what or how. It's coming. It rumbles in the streets, the houses, the skies, the bare and empty places, the glorious cities. _

This change, this revolution, it will take his soul, his being, his essence, his words, his wants, into hands as cold as winter, and, though Ivan desperately wants to believe in the ideals, in the hopes of these rebels, he has a terrible feeling that he won't be able to save anyone after this.


	2. Kronstadt, 1917: The Worst Thing

_The Worst Thing (Kronstadt, 1917)_

Finland shrugs and turns away, leaning against the railing.

"I don't know."

Ivan can smell the snow, clear and sharp and hard, and against it, the stench of flesh and metal.

Finland is still talking. "To the extent that you can really say that _anyone_ will be alright, in _this_ world and _this _time… yes, I think that your rebels will be alright. We'll take them in. But I can't say that you will be."

"Me?" Russia laughs abruptly. "How can things be any worse for me?"

_I've been a Mongol slave and a Czar's plaything. My country- I am falling apart. This war, this terrible war, that seems to swallow the whole world… how can anything ever be worse than this? _

Finland, who has had a sudden, dreadful memory of an old conversation, stares out at the sea and says nothing. _(Lithuania's eyes were hollow, the lashes flecked with blood, and in his voice was the echo of the gunshots.)_


	3. Ekaterinberg, 1917: They Walk

_They Walk (Ekaterinberg, 1918)_

In this moment, Ivan is Russia in a way that he never has been.

Maria's ribbon crumples as he lets it fall from his hand.

_In his mind, like silhouettes thrown onto the sheet, they walk._

'My people did not want you. Russia did not want you.' _(But Ivan did, and still does. Or is the word need? He's not so sure any more, although it suddenly seems terribly important.)_

He has a photograph, somewhere. There's still blood on the broken frame. Anastasia's face is drowned in the redness.

His fingers are wrapped in bandages, although he doesn't really see the point any more. The wounds of World War One still sting and blister, and somewhere under his scarf, the Mongol iron festers. So many revolutions, so many wars, so many failures.

_Her face is covered by a red scarf as she walks, and she carries a chain in her hands, cracked and bleeding from the cruel winter._

New boss. New times. New everything.

New Russia.

The vodka is so hard and burning that for a moment it feels like the back of his throat has split open along a fault-line. So many fault-lines inside him. The hammer and sickle bleed red onto the white crest over his heart.

_We've suffered so long that we've forgotten what hope, what humanity, what peace are. We don't want to, won't hurt any more_, the hammer shouts.

_Why are you tearing me apart?_ The eagle demands of the hammer. _ Our great, beautiful, terrible legacy… our god, our emperor, our country… no, don't, don't, don't do this. _

The sickle laughs. _He'll batter you and I'll slice you until there's nothing but an entrée for our supper. Our god, our emperor, they gave us nothing but _pain_. Don't you feel that? Don't you remember the blood of the cruel winters, the filth of the land, the helplessness of the people? And as for our country, we'll make it into a new motherland. One where no one hurts._

Where no one hurts.

The shot glass rattles as it slides across the floor. Ivan smiles as the pain over his heart blossoms and weeps. It's a good pain. The pain of renewal, of rebirth, of destruction. The eagle screams into his throat, but the vodka burns its blood away. The hammer and sickle remain in weary, smug, unhappy silence.

Ivan picks up Maria's ribbon, almost tears it, then stops, its length wrapped around his fingers. Eventually, he slips it into his pocket. The picture frame cuts into his hand. Where no one hurts. Yes. He'll make a new and wonderful and terrible world, where no one will hurt, because he will protect them. All of them. And because this will be a world without pain, _they_ will come back, to take away _his_ pain. Ivan's pain. Russia's pain.

_Across the bare hills, they walk. Under her red scarf, Anastasia's tears are as ice. _


	4. Moscow, 1918: Candles

_Candles (Moscow, 1918)_

Everything in Ivan's room is grey and splintered and dusty. Everything but the scarves. He sits, surrounded by the boxes, all of the lids opened, and in his lap, a scarf of a colour that he cannot name but chooses to call _winter_.

His boss sits in the only chair, watching him with those dark, impenetrable eyes. The scarf knots between Ivan's hands.

"We only did what was necessary. For our new world. For you. For everything."

Ivan says nothing.

"You are Russia. You know pain more intimately than your own heartbeat, if you have one. Don't mourn the few and neglect the many."

The winter scarf falls to the floor. The boss stoops to pick it up, but Ivan doesn't take it from his hands. Instead, he twines his fingers in the folds of the scarf that he is wearing, but never pulls it down.

"I know. I know what you want. I want it." Ivan's voice is soft yet cruel. He's good at that. "You're wonderful and ruthless and clever and monstrous. My people don't want you."

The boss shrugs elegantly. "But you do, and you are Russia, and Russia is you." He lets the winter scarf drop from his hands. "They don't want pain. They don't understand that you do not vanquish pain, that you never do anything more than shape it. So many idealists, like candles in the night."

"And you are the lantern?"

"No. I am the fire, and you are the night."

Russia takes the winter scarf from his boss's hand and twists it over and over again in his hands. Under his bed, Anastasia's last sunflower crumples.


	5. Leningrad, 1945: Strange Flowers

_Strange Flowers (Leningrad, 1945)_

Germany is going to _burn_ for this.

Ivan's rage is so hot and hard and bright that he feels as though the snow all the way up to Arkangelsk will bubble away leaving only the bitter dark earth. His earth. Russian earth. The dark core inside him. The snow is a fragile, almost pretty covering, cold and white, and beneath, the black soil underneath holds the seeds of strange and twisted flowers that will bloom as soon as the cruel sun touches their earth.

Russia does not forget anything. Not the Mongol iron or the feel of Ivan the Terrible's foot on his neck or the bodies in the basement or _anything_. He has many debts, and Russia _always_ repays them. Because that's fair, isn't it? It's not nice to leave things unfinished.

He'd better start saving up to repay this one.

They're waiting for him, in Berlin. As Russia walks away, his footprints rub the snow away and splash darkness across the white.


	6. Chernobyl, 1986: Cancer Scars

_Cancer Scars (Chernobyl, 1986)_

The sunflowers that grew along the dusty wall now wither and fade. Ivan runs his hand along their stems, and watches them crumble. He wants to vomit out the poison that rips sun-bright holes along the lining of his stomach. This is Ukraine, but it is also his Union, his beautiful, wonderful, horrendous Union, that is everything that he wants and needs and hates. The Union where he will kill pain, starting with his own.

No. This isn't going to happen. This didn't happen. Ivan smiles grimly and closes his eyes as dead sunflower petals fall onto his scarf. This never happened. And everything will be perfect.

_You're not dead and I'm not mad and no one hurts. All my Czars and Communists, you'd better play nicely when I bring you together. You're not ready yet. But you will be. I wouldn't let any of you die. Not even if you want to. Because you're mine. Because I'm killing pain, one scar at a time, and when I'm done, you'll all rise up, because I love you, and it hurts too much to see you gone. _

He can taste the poison in the air, but there are already so many cancers wrapped around his heart that this little death won't make any difference.

Over his stomach, there is already a tiny splash of yellow and black. Russia laughs as he walks away. He _eats_ cancer like he eats pain. Like he's going to eat this whole world and vomit out all of the poison.


End file.
